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30 comments

  • Two words….The Last Airbender! The special effects in this movie made Avatar look like an atari 2600 video game. As for the dialog, it was the closest thing to words having sex! M. Night has hit this one not just out of the park but out of this earth into an amazingly rich and detailed fantasy world we as human beings have never imagined until this point in our existence. Watching this movie in 3D was like swimming in the great barrier reef with the harlem globetrotters! I now wish I hadn’t even seen this movie(twice) because I fear film making can only go down from here. I have only had this feeling about a movie once before after sitting through THE HAPPENING but M. Night proved once again what a true genius is capable of. Thank you sir on behalf of all humanity. We are eternally grateful for your gift.

  • See, your closing comments, there, are Precisely the kind of shit I was a afraid would happen: People so ruined on the movie that they Never EVER want to see the series, which was actually pretty damn good.

    Just… Damn it.

  • I haven’t had this much fun watching the trashing of a film since Siskel and Ebert demolished Smokey & the Bandit 2. Consider what depths I had to reach to find a similar reaction, and you’ll appreciate Mr. Widge’s rant. Be calm, my brother. Sturgeon’s Law states that “90 percent of science fiction is cr@p, but then 90 percent of everything is cr@p.”

    /b

  • “Swimming in the Great Barrier Reef with the Harlem Globetrotters.” This just might be the most awesome comment of 2010.

  • I agree w/Jared. Give yourself some cooling off time, then Netflix the first disk of the series. Just the first one. You will love the story, and what’s better, you will hate the movie more, which you probably do not believe possible, but believe me, it is.

  • Possibly the worst movie I’ve ever seen, and I’m a huge fan of the show, and what you said was right on the money – I’m really scared people will never check out this amazing series because it got bumfucked so spectacularly by Shamalamalan. Because not only is it a bad movie, it pisses all over the source material, changes everybody’s names, and the rules of bending, and the ending battle, which should have had Aang (or should it be”Ung”?) turn into a giant celestial otter bear thing made out of water and destroy the entire fire nation navy, not just make a big tidal wave and threaten people with it a bit.

    Also, you could tell that no one had any direction, and the casting director needs to be fired. You could just tell that the actors didn’t know what to do with their characters, and they tried, but they couldn’t make anyone interesting. Plus, the Asian/Inuit cast of the show become all whit, except for the bad guys. FANTASTIC.

  • I’ll add my voice to the argument being made for the animation. Any and all credit that The Last Airbender might get for having an interesting world belongs SOLELY with the writers/animators of Avatar: The Legend of Aang.

    Thank you too, for convincing me not to waste my money on this.

  • I hate M. Night Shyamalan. I hate him with such a passion that i am now writing a the feed back in this website. I am a die heart fan of the anime show… this movie was like a kick on the balls to me. He did not only ruin a main element from the show, but he had the nerve to change the main character’s name and to change others as well.He should not only retract this movie and burn every copy of it, but also fully refund everyone’s money and issue an apology nation wide declaring he will retire an never make a comeback again. This movie ranks up to top three of the worst movies i had ever seen before. Right after Dragonball Evolution(2) and Norbit(1). I truly feel sorry for those who had never seen the show before and will never see it because of this horrible film.I only wish that for those who are upset of this movie to actually watch the show before dismissing it all together. Thank you for reading and F.U. M Night Shyamalan :)

  • this is a great upset. why did he have to make such a crappy movie when the show he based it on is so greatly constructed. seriously, M Night Shyamalan, how could you make such a crappy movie from this show. he skipped all the important parts that made the characters real. not only did the movie have so many faults, like when they were sent to the prison.where did appa go? anyways, he didn’t include important characters, like suki, jet, bumi, and avatar roku! like seriously! you only made this film cause of your daughter, which btw is probably mad at you cause you made this movie so crappy. don’t make book two. just don’t. if you want your daughter to love you again, you must promise us not to make book two. thank you for reading.

  • Ive been enjoying all the horrible reviews, but now its starting to work the other way. At first I had no intention of seeing this movie, but the reviews are so universally bad, its like, Hey! I wanna see the train wreck too!

    The only thing thats keeping me away, is that I might feel responsible if somehow this movie makes enough $$ to justify another.

  • MSN: We all know that temptation. My recommendation: compromise. Wait and get it from Netflix or buy it off the $3.99 shelf at your used DVD store. Or snag it from SwapaDVD or something. Trust me, it’ll be out in 3 months’ time and you can see it then with no fear of adding to its box office.

  • Your rant was amusing and rage-filled. And for someone who’s not seen the cartoon, quite entertaining. As a fan of the show, I DID want his head on a platter but not because I saw the movie and had my own list of grievances. No. They made the bone-headed decision to marginalize the cultures depicted in the cartoon. Oh wait, they cast people of colour but they merely populate the backgrounds or were villains. And as an Asian-American, it angered and saddened me. Hollywood missed an opportunity, yet again.

    I dislike speaking in absolutes but you ARE indeed doing yourself a disservice by not watching the source material. The cartoon won a Peabody, a distinction that few animated programmes have done. Watch some of the show, it’s available on watch instantly on Netflix and realise there’s good dialogue, actual plot, strong female characters, and actual consequences. There’s a lot of humour but also moments of poignancy that resonate beautifully with the characters you come to know. Forget this hack-job piece of drivel and please don’t condemn an excellent show because of M. Night’s travesty.

  • GCG: Thanks for your comment. I had heard about the “racebending” issue and I can see where that would really piss some people off. It would be one thing–not a thing I would necessarily condone but I could at least understand the Hollywoodthink for it–if you recast the races because you had big stars that you wanted to put in place. But the biggest name in the film, for me anyway, was Dev Patel. And I understand Jackson Rathbone is in the Twilight series, but I don’t know him from Adam. So the fact that they recast makes little sense to me.

    And yes, I thought I had posted on here previously–but having given myself some time to get away from the crapfest–and posting my A-Team review which reminded me of what a fun movie can be–I think I will eventually get around to watching the cartoon. I just have very little time to watch TV, so it might be awhile. But fear not, Night hasn’t placed it on my Verboten Video list.

    Thanks again for writing in.

  • Yeah, Rathbone is in the Twilight series. Evidently after being cast, he commented in an interview that to get in character he’d have to get a tan or something. I think it was with MTV. I vaguely remember reading it and thinking to myself, “did he really just frigging say that…?”

    I didn’t realise you previously commented that you were going to give the wounds time to heal before dipping your toe into the ‘verse of the Avatar again. As someone whose first encounter was the film, I seriously don’t blame you. And thanks for replying that you’re willing to be open-minded and give it a go : )

    By the by, I just watched your A-Team review and agreed wholeheartedly. I needed a true popcorn flick to get my mind off Father’s day (loses meaning when you’ve lost that particular parent) so opted to catch the first showing at a cinema here that also serves beer + wine. I was armed with my pitcher of Mac & Jack’s and bowl of buttered popcorn. And it delivered what I exactly needed: fun entertainment that also highlighted one of my crushes (Sharlto Copley)… what? Don’t judge!

  • It’s understandable to crush on Copley…between A-Team and D9, he seems to be a helluva character actor. And thanks for checking out another review. Glad the film was able to give you a diversion. Sometimes we just need films to be diversion. They can’t all be Merchant Ivory…

  • It’s good to read that you plan on watching the series. It really is night and day in comparison to the movie. I’ll just tell you what I told someone else who swore not to watch the series after seeing the movie.

    The first five minutes of the TV show has more character development then was seen in the entire fucking movie!

    To prove it I linked him to a stream of the first episode. Three days later he’d finished watching the entire series.

  • Give yourself some cool-down time, and see the series. The series was knock-down drag out amazing. I agree the movie was a contender for worst movie ever. Shyamalan punched a great mythos in the face, knocked it over, stomped on it, and shoved it over a cliff. By the way, if you saw this in McMinnville, OR yesterday and had a guy sitting next to you that was complaining about the shittiness of the movie constantly, that was me, sorry. Guess I just couldn’t hold it in till afterwards.

  • I would like to see what someone says about the show after seeing the movie first. :)

  • The Last Airbender – yehey, we have a candidate for THE WORST MOVIE, WORST DIRECTOR, WORST SCREENPLAY, WORST ACTOR, WORST SCRIPT OF 2010!!! It’s a sure winner!!!

  • The Last Airbender – Now I realize what the LAST in the title means, so I’m sure it is the LAST. Now I am relieved! I almost slept while watching this movie.

  • I agree. The movie is atrocious. I already made it part of my Facebook status the moment I saw the movie on opening day:

    PROFILE NAME implores you not to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. Go watch Twoilet instead, a far superior movie to the trash that M. Night has made. For he has killed, dismembered and burnt one of the best franchises out there. The cartoon is 1000x better than the garbage exposed to your eyes in the cinema.

    And my friends paid heed and I hope M. Night just rots and never makes another movie again. Do watch the cartoon.

    Widge there is one thing though, that no one pointed out in any review. And since I’ve seen the cartoon a number of times there is a HUGE difference in the soundtrack of the movie and the cartoon. The cartoon soundtrack actually is rooted in Asian heritage while the movie soundtrack is like any other sci fi soundtrack. It feels completely detached from its surroundings and characters. It does not even belong there. The cartoon soundtrack is beautiful, inspiring and trying to be true to the cultures that are being showcased in the show. The movie soundtrack was probably just made without giving the cartoon soundtrack a listen. I would dub that one over the movie any day.

    go to http://www.grooveshark.com and search for:
    “Aang faces Ozai”
    “End of Avatar”
    “Iroh’s speech”
    “Last Agni Kai”

  • CA: That’s a good point about the music…and I do not remember the score at all–testament to your statement about how it’s just generic.

  • I agree with you, the movie is terrible. I have seen the animated series and this movie DOES NOT do it ANY justice. I have my own gripes of what he did to destroy the series, (like needlessly changing the names… wtf?) but don’t discount the animated series. Please watch the animated series and see what he could have done with it. I understand that taking a whole season and breaking it down into a 2hr movie is hard. He still didn’t need to put his own spin on it. It’s established, it has fans just stay true to the source material. He didn’t, too much was tweaked for NO REASON. It didn’t enhance the story it just made me irritated that he made pointless changes. Watch the animated series, it’s great.

  • Groonk: Fear not…it’s on The List. Granted, I’m just now watching my first episodes of Doctor Who, so there is a bit of a backlog. :-)

    Nice URL, BTW.

  • Widge: The movie soundtrack is very generic. I love grooveshark.com And you’re welcome. I enjoyed watching your review.

  • The only way this travisty (did i spell that right) of a good cartoon could have been worse is if it had just been 2 chimps throwing shit at each other, and even thats debatably better than this utter crap. They tried to completely take away the cultural background of the series and didn’t even try to give Aang and Katara a possible relationship or even a friendship. The director should be half drowned, burned for a while, choked then buried underground for all time as a punishment, at least

  • It’s “travesty,” but look at it this way: your spelling skills are still better than MNS’ ability to make an anime adaptation. So you’re all good, dude. :-)